RGH completes new surgical unit

The 12-room surgical short-stay unit, located on the 2000 wing of Rochester General Hospital, will begin to see patients on Feb. 27. (Courtesy of RGH)

Rochester General Hospital has completed a new surgical unit for short-stay patients, hospital officials said Tuesday.

The 12-room unit is meant to accommodate patients whose post-surgery care requires an overnight hospital stay of 23 hours or less. The new rooms are private and include individual bathroom and shower facilities. Each room also has a telemedicine hookup to allow doctors to remotely monitor their recovering patients.

The new surgery unit’s addition reflects a trend: Procedures that used to require hospitalizations as long as week—uncomplicated gallbladder removals, for example—are now routinely done less invasively and require only overnight stays.

Cataract operations that used to see patients hospitalized for several days or longer are now usually done in freestanding same-day surgery centers or doctors’ offices with patients spending no time in a hospital.

Rochester General’s new short-stay unit—partly financed by $500,000 in charitable donations—is slated to go online Thursday. The hospital expects to start renovations this summer to similarly equip a second surgery unit, officials said.